Genre Performing Arts. Page - 3

not the case with the stout fellow that at that moment entered from the common room beyond. He caught sight of me and let out a yell that could have, and in fact did, summon everyone in the place. The sounds of singing stopped as others rushed to see the source of his consternation.

"Let this be a lesson to you not to waylay innocent travelers!" I shouted, scooping up the pies, one in each hand. I urged Hysteria onward, but no doubt feeling the warm air exiting the window, she was loath to move. The orphan fixed that by slapping her on the backside, her fragile ego notwithstanding. She jumped and shot around to the front of the inn just as the gang of toughs from inside came out the front door. They were just in time to watch us race off into the darkness with two warm and steamy pies.

Chapter Four

: Wherein we make decisions about our supper.

When we were not two hundred yards down the road, I let Hysteria drop to a trot, for in trut

blood and fury. Sword still in his hand. No one goes near him. I can hear him panting. A tug on the reins, the horse turns around. The axe is raised. Back at a gallop. Elias spreads his legs, two tree-roots. His head and arms turned to the sky, he drops his sword.

The final blow: 'Omnia sunt communia, sons of whores!'

His head flies into the dust.

* * *

The houses are being ransacked. Doors smashed in with kicks and axe-blows. We'll be next. No time to lose. I lean over him.

'Magister, listen to me, we've got to go, they're coming... For the love of God, Magister...' I grasp his shoulders. He whispers a reply. He can't move. Trapped, we're trapped.

Like Elias.

My hand clutches my sword. Like Elias. I wish I had his courage.

'What do you think you're doing? We've had enough of martyrdom. Go on, get out while you can!'   

The voice. As though from the bowels of the earth. I can't believe he's spoken. He's moving even less than be

And so it has been for the last 13 years. The companies that claim the ability to regulate humanity's Right to Know have been tireless in their endeavors to prevent the inevitable. The won most of the legislative battles in the U.S. and abroad, having purchased all the government money could buy. They even won most of the contests in court. They created digital rights management software schemes that behaved rather like computer viruses.

Indeed, they did about everything they could short of seriously examining the actual economics of the situation - it has never been proven to me that illegal downloads are more like shoplifted goods than viral marketing - or trying to come up with a business model that the market might embrace.

Had it been left to the stewardship of the usual suspects, there would scarcely be a word or a note online that you didn't have to pay to experience. There would be increasingly little free speech or any consequence, since free speech is not something anyone can o

Blue Screen of Death" that appears on Windows users' monitors when something goes irretrievably wrong is the butt of many jokes.

Linux users also bragged about the quality of their desktop interface. Most of the uninitiated thought of Linux as a hacker's system built for nerds. Yet recently two very good operating shells called GNOME and KDE had taken hold. Both offered the user an environment that looked just like Windows but was better. Linux hackers started bragging that they were able to equip their girlfriends, mothers, and friends with Linux boxes without grief. Some people with little computer experience were adopting Linux with little trouble.

Building websites and supercomputers is not an easy task, and it is often done in back rooms out of the sight of most people. When people began realizing that the free software hippies had slowly managed to take over a large chunk of the web server and supercomputing world, they realized that perhaps Microsoft's claim was viable. Web servers and su

To keep from brooding about Vic and the Motu burn and the firefight, Spur looked up friends who had fallen out of his life. He surprised his cousin Land, who was living in Slide Knot in Southeast and working as a tithe assessor. He connected with his childhood friend Handy, whom he hadn't seen since the Alcazars had moved to Freeport, where Handy's mom was going to teach pastoral philosophy. She was still at the university and Handy was an electrician. He tracked down his self-reliance school sweetheart, Leaf Benkleman, only to discover that she had emigrated from Walden to Kolo in the Alumar system. Their attempt to catch up was frustrating, however, because the Cooperative's censors seemed to buzz every fifth word Leaf said. Also, the look on her face whenever he spoke rattled Spur. Was it pity? He was actually relieved when she cut their conversation short.

Despite the censors, talking to Leaf whetted Spur's appetite for making contact with the upside. He certainly wouldn't get the chance once he

Alan sanded the house on Wales Avenue. It took six months, and the whole time it was the smell of the sawdust, ancient and sweet, and the reek of chemical stripper and the damp smell of rusting steel wool.

Alan took possession of the house on January 1, and paid for it in full by means of an e-gold transfer. He had to do a fair bit of hand-holding with the realtor to get her set up and running on e-gold, but he loved to do that sort of thing, loved to sit at the elbow of a novitiate and guide her through the clicks and taps and forms. He loved to break off for impromptu lectures on the underlying principles of the transaction, and so he treated the poor realtor lady to a dozen addresses on the nature of international currency markets, the value of precious metal as a kind of financial lingua franca to which any currency could be converted, the poetry of vault shelves in a hundred banks around the world piled with the heaviest of metals, glinting dully in the fluorescent tube lighting, tended by gnomish bankers who spoke a hundred languages but communicated with one another by means of this universal tongue of weights and measures and purity.

he Saying, Jebu, or I'll slice your belly open."

" 'A Zinja who kills a brother of the Order will die a thousand deaths.' "Jebu quoted The Zinja Manual, the Order's book of wisdom.

Fudo snorted. "That book is a collection of old women's tales. You are wrong, Jebu. The Father Abbot foolishly appointed us to guard you. We have only to say we killed you because you were trying to escape from the crypt."

"I don't know any Saying."

"Kill the dog and be done with it, Weicho."

The instant Jebu felt the point of the naginata press harder against his skin, he swung his hand over and struck the weapon aside. With a quick chop of his other hand he broke the long staff into which the blade was set. The curved steel blade splashed into the water, and Jebu felt around for it. He grabbed the broken wooden end and held the naginata blade like a sword. But he still dared not climb out of the crypt.

"Come and get me," he said.

"Come and get us," said Weicho.

"He won't," s

Paul sighed and dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. "I've only got $600 on me," he said as he leafed through the bills. "That was going to be my bribe money for the night."

"If you can spare it, it'd help. I've already doled out all my cash on hand to secure the place and get the liquor. But we still need..."

"I know, I know," said Paul, handing the money to Sandee. "Let's just try and make tonight kick ass so we can earn that back as quick as possible."

"We should be flush by dawn, my dear," Sandee assured him. "Just you wait."

"That's the plan anyway. But would you explain that to Chloe for me?"

"What is Chloe doing tonight, anyway?" Sandee asked. "I was hoping to get her to come out with me and check out the new help at the Hyatt."

"She's busy getting everything set up for our visitors. She's kind of freaking out about all the little details."

"Oh my, are they coming in tonight? I thought that was next week."

delicate path around them.

"Hands on the wall."

The skin on the back of Adam's hands looked like tissue paper, ready to tear at a moment's notice.

The air reeked - an acrid combination of vomit and excrement that the drizzle only aggravated. Adam spread his legs and let Dan pat his sides for weapons.

Dan pressed the muzzle of his automatic into the small of Adam's back, hard enough to bruise. He grappled with his handcuffs and slapped them around Adam's left wrist. Then, with a twist to the cruel metal that would ensure compliance through pain, he wrenched Adam's arm behind his back and fastened the other half of the cuffs. It was never easy; Dan felt vulnerable working alone. He'd never grown accustomed to it after leaving the force. Only the reassuring click-click-click of secured handcuffs released the tension pent within.

"You're American aren't you?" - Silence - "Aren't you going to read me my rights?" Adam turned to search his captor's face when the tension eased on h

wly came back.

Miri looked around the the people.

'Isn't anyone going to investigate?' she demanded, showing the palms of her hands.

She was met by blank stares and tutted, 'Cowards.'

Meru grabbed her arm, 'What are you going to do?'

'I'm going to have a look.'

'What? Are you mad?'

'No, I'm curious. This is a visit from the heavens, I must see them!'

She pulled away from Meru, and walked over to the object. She gingerly raised a hand and touched the object's flank. She was surprised to find it cool to the touch. The crowd watched her with trepidation.

'Miri, get back here!' Meru called.

'It's all right.' she replied. The crowd gasped as she vaulted up on top of the object and walked over to the hood.

Miri was confused by what she saw. Underneath the hood was something like a small room. There was a chair surrounded by a series of tables in which lights and buttons were placed. Many of them were a familiar and reassuring red colour, s